Binance Posts $3.64 Billion Net Outflow After Reopening, Bitcoin Steadies Ahead of Midterms

Since hackers stole $6.3 billion from Binance last week, the exchange has frozen about $3 billion of it and promised to cover every loss. Its first test with customers came Sunday, Nov. 1, when it allowed transactions to resume for Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.

The result: users withdrew more than $4.6 billion, Binance said in a social media post. Customers deposited just over $1 billion. The net outflow was $3.64 billion.

Binance put that in perspective. The net figure equals about 2.1% of its $171 billion in total assets. The exchange says it has more than 300 million users.

A run that didn't snowball

Binance said withdrawals were stabilizing after an initial spike and that deposit volumes remained "substantial."

Tim Sun, a senior researcher at HashKey Group, read the numbers as a shock but not a panic. "While the incident delivered a shock to market confidence, it has not yet triggered widespread panic or a massive, concentrated withdrawal by users," he said.

Sun added that some of the outflow is likely routine withdrawals and portfolio adjustments. Some users, he said, may also be spreading risk through self-custody wallets rather than moving funds to rival exchanges.

Binance co-founder Yi He said the exchange's priority is securing its environment first. "Our top priority right now is to ensure the environment is secure, after which users can withdraw their funds, and Binance can resume operations," she wrote on X early Monday.

Binance said it had covered about 95% of the affected amount by early Sunday morning, using its SAFU fund and company money.

What the hack investigation shows so far

The FBI has linked the theft to North Korea. It named the group "TraderTraitor" and said the group is converting most of the stolen assets into Ethereum to obscure the trail. The FBI also attributed the February 2025 Bybit theft of $1.5 billion to the same group.

The bureau urged private-sector firms "to block transactions with or derived from addresses TraderTraitor actors are using to launder these stolen assets."

Binance's own preliminary account is narrower. The exchange said its initial investigation suggests a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop let an attacker reach a service container and submit unauthorized withdrawal transactions. It said it found "no evidence of any wallet private key leak."

That is the company's early finding, not a completed forensic report.

Markets steady, with a heavy week ahead

Bitcoin rose 0.5% Monday to $78,184.11 after touching a six-week low Friday. Ether gained 1.5% to $2,296.44 after sliding to a two-month trough last week.

The broader backdrop is crowded. The dollar index eased 0.5% to 101.45, its lowest in a month. Brent crude futures fell 3.8% on growing hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the U.S.-Iran conflict.

Kit Juckes, head of FX strategy at Societe Generale, said the shift was "slightly more risk-friendly, slightly more dollar negative."

The euro rose 0.7% to $1.1234 despite Fitch cutting France's outlook to negative from stable after Friday's close. The Reserve Bank of Australia is widely expected to raise its cash rate Tuesday to 4.85%, a near two-decade high. Rate decisions are also due in Britain, Norway and Sweden, and October U.S. jobs data arrives later in the week.

Midterms land Tuesday

Americans vote Tuesday, Nov. 3. Democrats are widely predicted to win the House. The Senate is the open question.

The final New York Times/Siena polls, fielded Oct. 23 to Nov. 1, show Democrats ahead in Michigan, Texas, Kansas, Maine and Ohio. Alaska is narrowly Democratic and Iowa is effectively tied. In Texas, James Talarico leads Ken Paxton 50% to 43%. In Kansas, Adam Hamilton leads Sen. Roger Marshall 49% to 44%. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown leads Sen. Jon Husted 49% to 44%. In Maine, Troy Jackson leads Sen. Susan Collins 51% to 45%.

The Alaska margin is 48% to 46% for Mary Peltola over Sen. Dan Sullivan, and the Iowa margin is 48% to 47% for Josh Turek over Ashley Hinson. Both sit inside the margins of error, which ran from roughly 3.3 to 4.8 points across the state surveys.

Don Levy, executive director of the Siena Research Institute, said a Democratic Senate is "a distinct possibility" but that with so many races inside the margin of error, "a Senate majority for either party remains possible."

Analyst Nate Silver called the numbers "fantastic numbers for Democrats" but added a warning about polling itself. "They might be wrong again," he wrote, noting the pattern depends on two big "ifs": Democrats consolidating in blue states while Republicans fail to do so in red ones.

Fox News's Nov. 1 Power Rankings moved Kansas from "Lean Republican" to "Toss-up." Fox still calls overall Senate control a toss-up, with Democrats favored in 48 seats and Republicans in 45.

Because Vice President JD Vance can break a tie, Democrats need to hold their own seats and flip four Republican-held ones.

What Binance still owes its customers

Binance has promised a detailed technical post-mortem once its investigation is complete and verified, along with an updated Proof of Reserves once remediation is finished. Neither has been released.

The roughly $3 billion that is not frozen is the figure to watch as the FBI and blockchain firms trace the Ethereum conversions.